Category Archives: Libertarianism

Why are Conservatives increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies?

It might seem like an odd fit at first blush. Conservatism, after all, is something of a backward-looking persuasion. It starts from a premise that traditional ideas and institutions should, as a general rule, be protected and sustained. Theyve come through a process of trial and error over the course of history and therefore deserve our deference and respect.

This call for epistemological humility can sometimes manifest itself in an aversion to novelty and even progress. Michael Oakeshott famously described it as:

to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

The point here is that the conservative instinct tells us that most new ideas are false or wrong precisely because they havent been subjected to the rigours of practical wisdom. Conservatism, in this sense, is the political expression of the famous line from Will and Ariel Durant: Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional response which they propose to replace.

That might seem like an odd philosophical basis from which to embrace something as far-out as digital money. Yet there are limits to mere abstractions about conservative ideas and the conservative persuasion. Samuel Huntington tells us that conservatism must be understood in a specific situational context. Its a contingent perspective that reflects particularistic circumstances. A Saudi Arabian conservative is different from a European conservative whos different from a North American conservative. What they seek to conserve necessarily reflects their unique culture and intellectual inheritances.

North American conservatism has long distinguished itself by its unique combination of a deference to tradition and a commitment to change. In his famous essay, Why I am not a conservative, Friedrich Hayek attributed this mix of posterity and progress to the fact that what North American conservatives are essentially seeking to conserve is a classical liberal tradition. That is to say, the North American conservative is, at some fundamental level, a liberal. His or her conservatism is dedicated to the preservation of the continents liberal ideas, institutions, and values.

Its worth emphasizing this point: North American conservatism is somewhat oxymoronically committed to preserving a cultural and political liberalism which itself is fertile soil for growth, dynamism, and innovation. Its a conservative tradition committed to a set of ideas, institutions, and values that are inherently pro-progress.

David Brooks spoke to this unique amalgam of ideas and intuitions in a 2018 podcast episode with Tyler Cowen. When asked about his own conservative worldview, he answered the following:

Well, Im anAmericanconservative. My two heroes are Edmund BurkeandEdmund Burkes core conservative ethosis epistemological modesty, the belief that the world is really complicated, and therefore the change should be constant but incremental My other hero is Alexander Hamilton His conservatism was very different. Its about dynamism, energy, transformational change. And so a European self-conservatism doesnt work here. You have to have that dynamic, recreated, self-transformational element.

This applies to Canada too. As Ben Woodfinden and I outline in a forthcoming essay on Sir John A. Macdonalds own conservatism, the countrys first prime minister personified this unique mix of backward- and forward-looking ideas. He was at once a dispositional conservative as represented in his personal preferences and tastes and something of a futurist with an ambitious vision of the frontier that was manifested in his nation-building agenda. As we write:

For his part, Macdonald saw entrepreneurial freedom, limited but energetic federal power, and national greatness as inextricably linked. These instincts for national development were actually quite Hamiltonian. Like the father of the American commercial revolution, Macdonald came to represent a business liberalism which was suffused with a Toryism concerned with a virtuous and ordered liberty.

I share this abridged story of the North American conservative tradition because its important to understand the compatibility of conservative ideas and technological progress in general and conservatism and cryptocurrencies in particular. The conservative persuasion in North America should be generally viewed as sympatico with frontier-like ideas, inventions, and technologies.

These conceptual points bring us back to the more practical question at hand: why are conservatives increasingly pro-crypto?

The first point is to establish that they are indeed showing growing interest in digital currencies. There are various examples, including, for instance, MP Michelle Rempel-Garners recently-tabled legislation that would have the government consult on a framework to encourage the growth of crypto assets in Canada.

Some have dismissed these developments as merely related to the recent trucker protests in Ottawa. But this critique fails to reckon with the broader movement of conservative intellectuals and politicians that has come to support bitcoin and other forms of crypto-currencies in recent years.

The highest-profile proponents arent themselves politicians. The two biggest are probably Elon Musk and Peter Thiel who are investors and entrepreneurs with significant influence on society and culture in general and the world of libertarianism in particular.

Theyve both come to be associated with the growing cultural and political movement around crypto-currencies through a combination of their personal investments, public commentaries, and large online followings. The former has frequently talked about how he owns crypto-currencies, including Dogecoin, which he has been instrumental in popularizing. The latter has described bitcoin as the one asset that I most strongly believe in.

The appeal of crypto-currencies to Musk and Thiel isnt merely about the financial upside. Theres also an ideological dimension. Digital moneys decentralized nature conjures up possibilities of new, more libertarian economic and political arrangements. Thiel has even argued that if we want to think about contemporary technologies in ideological terms, artificial intelligence can be thought of as communist and crypto-currencies are libertarian.

Its no surprise that in the face of sustained pandemic restrictions, libertarian ideas seem to be resonating more and more these days. In this context, Musk and Thiel have emerged as major figures among a cohort of millennial or Generation Z followers who are drawn to their contrarian rebuke of the stuffy conformity of modern life. Ross Douthat has thus described the rise of folk libertarianismor what others have called Barstool conservatismas one of the key socio-political developments of the pandemic age.

This movement is less steeped in the tomes of libertarian thought and instead more reflective of contemporary cultural and political trends, including the rise of cancel culture, identity politics, and perceptions of government bossiness. Its followers are more Dave Portnoy than Ludwig von Mises.

As a cultural and political movement, its highly active online, a bit coarse and politically incorrect, and mostly engaged in politics from the periphery using GIFs and memes rather than direct action. It reflects a series of intuitions about individual responsibility, personal expression, a commitment to technology and progress, and an aversion to so-called wokeism. Recently, The Hub contributor Ben Woodfinden summed up this worldview and its followers as crypto bros. Hes not wrong.

The key point here though is that there are cultural and intellectual factors behind North American conservativess growing interest in new and novel monetary innovations. Its broadly consistent with continental conservatisms interest in frontier ideas and technologies as well as the growing appetite for non-mainstream, decentralized models of economic and political organization in the face of perceived top-down conformity. But it also possibly holds out the potential to bring new and different votersparticularly members of Canadas sizeable non-voter constituencyinto the Conservative fold. Crypto has therefore become an ideological and political rallying cry for North American conservatives.

Its not to say that there are serious issues with crypto-currencies. The recent volatility raises legitimate questions about whether this is a sustainable market development or merely a hyper-online fad. One gets the sense that the true story is somewhere in the middle.

But as Matt Spoke recently argued in an essay for The Hub, there may be a case for a country like Canada to make a huge bet that the future of crypto is more sustainable than it is faddish. Theres reason to believe that the presumptive, next Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, broadly agrees with this perspective.

To the extent that he does, it shouldnt be viewed as inherently incompatible with the conservative tradition. North American conservatism has since its origins reflected an intellectual and political persuasion with both a backward- and forward-looking impulse. A careful yet curious view on crypto-currencies is well-rooted in this long-standing tradition.

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Sean Speer: Why conservatives are so keen on cryptocurrencies - The Hub

ASHEVILLE - Upcoming primary electionsin Buncombe County will feature crowded and consequentialprimaries for Congress, district attorney, sheriff, City Council and Asheville City Schools Board of Education.

Trump ally Rep. Madison Cawthorn is facing an eight-way Republican May 17 primary.Democratic District Attorney Todd Williams hastwo challengers in a primary that will serve as the de facto general election because no Republicans are running.

The mayor's primary, meanwhile, has five candidates, including incumbent Esther Manheimer. Eleven council candidates are competing for three spots on the seven-member body. Both Asheville races are nonpartisan.

More: Details on mayoral and City Council candidates

The school boardis holding its first election since a historic move by the council and state legislators to switch from an appointed board.

Contested congressional and General Assembly maps caused the primaries to be pushed back into May. That means the chance to register to vote ends April 22.

Voting: NC Supreme Court strikes down redistricting maps, directs lawmakers to redraw

But voters who miss that deadline can still register if they vote the same day during one-stop early voting April 28 - May 14.

Election Services Director Corinne Duncan said it is important for votersto know how this election will be different withchanged dates and new school board elections.

But some aspects, even confusing ones, remain the same. Those include rules about how unaffiliated voters can choose whether to vote in Democratic or Republican primaries.

"It is always good to remind voters that people who are registered as unaffiliated are still able to cast a ballot as North Carolina holds semi-open primaries," Duncan said.

Now: Absentee ballots can be requested by registered voters for the 2022 statewide primaries.

April 22:Civilian voter registration deadline for the 2022 statewide primaries.

April 28:One-stop, in-person early voting period begins for the 2022 statewide primaries.

May 14:One-stop, in-person early voting period ends at 3 p.m. for the 2022 statewide primaries.

May 17:Election Day for the 2022 statewide primariesand civilian absentee ballot return deadline.

Details on statewide and local races are below:

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Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess atjburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter@AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with asubscriptionto the Citizen Times.

Excerpt from:
Voting in Asheville, Buncombe, WNC starts April 28; who's on the ballot? A complete list - Citizen Times

Back in February, we had a pretty good idea what was going on. Video and satellite imagery had shown the steady increase and massing of Russian troops, tanks, and military supplies around Ukraines borders. Vladimir Putin had started wars before and here he was again, on the precipice of something truly horrific.

What bothered me was the extent to which several high-profile populist conservatives were seeming to reflexively side with the cruel Russian autocrat. I watched as Tucker Carlson and J.D. Vance defended Putin, or adopted the Kremlins critique of Ukraine. The country was a pure client state of the United States State Department said Carlson. Spare me the performative affection for the Ukraine said Vance on Steve Bannons War Room podcast.

These interventions, made as Russia began an invasion that looks set to result in the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, look high risk and low reward. These commentators are undermining the credibility they have accrued for taking bold stances on the security and identity issues their base really cares about. Namely: wokeness, the border, crime and defending national heritage.

This is a real shame for populist conservatism in the United States. During the height of progressive moral panics such as the Covington Boys, George Floyd protests or Rittenhouse trial, Tuckers show was an oasis of sanity. It was, too, on exposing campus craziness and anti-white rhetoric in institutions, or the scale of illegal immigration. He defended the legitimacy of Americans who wanted to regulate the pace of ethno-cultural change and protect social cohesion, taking immense flak from the great and the good. Others, such as Glenn Greenwald, highlighted the blind spots and biases of progressive organisations and tech firms. Most American politicians and legacy media outlets failed to cover these issues objectively.

And yet, when it comes to a suite of other problems, the incisive logic of the sceptics and their marshalling of evidence yielded to sweeping neo-Marxist conspiracy theories about a manipulative power elite. This became evident during the pandemic, a tricky new challenge in which experts and politicians had to optimise between death rates and freedom. While governments and public health bodies may have got the balance wrong, and overreached with mask mandates, such a complex issue does not lend itself to maximalist claims.

Instead, the difficulties of policymaking during the pandemic demanded building a patient case with data and arguing for the dial to be turned a bit towards greater personal autonomy. Indeed, the politics of anti-lockdown libertarianism has not paid off for those, such as Nigel Farage, who have attempted to campaign on it. It was never a populist position.

Another tricky issue which is largely tangential to populist voters concerns is foreign policy, where, even with Putin issuing marching orders to unprepared conscripts, populist elites continued to carry water for this killer. Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, and Viktor Orbn all, at various moments, spoke warmly of him. While it is legitimate to make a realist case as John Mearsheimer has done for tempering Ukrainian demands and accommodating reasonable Russian security concerns, the inability of some to reject the moral equivalence of Ukraine and Russia was glaring.

What lies behind this bizarre empathy toward Putins thuggish regime?

First, there is an important disconnect between Right-wing populist elites and their audience. Populist elites compete with mainstream intellectual elites, yearning for an overarching meta-theory to rival progressive liberalism or libertarianism. Many also desire a modicum of politically-correct respectability and thus try to pretend they are motivated by a desire to speak for the downtrodden. This typically results in a neo-Marxist mlange focused on globalist power elites and their manipulation of the masses. All of which pushes populist intellectuals toward grand theories of global economic and political order that bear little relationship to what national populist voters and audiences actually care about.

Steve Bannon talks endlessly about the perils of free trade, Davos and the working class, despite the fact the data shows very clearly that cultural attitudes and views on immigration, not material deprivation, are what predict support for Trump. Likewise, Brexit elites such as Boris Johnson or Douglas Carswell, with their libertarian dreams of a sovereign free-trading Britain, are strangely disconnected from actual Brexit voters, who were like Trump voters mainly motivated by a desire for less immigration and slower cultural change. The more Brexit voters glimpse the real Johnson, who cares nothing for these things, the less connected they feel to him.

Populist elites have developed a fixation on global elites and institutions as self-interested scheming actors, and have become obsessed with mobilising opposition to the globalist juggernaut. Rather than viewing the problem as a western cultural-Left worldview which repudiates national tradition and elevates a cult of victimhood, we are treated to conspiratorial musings about the Great Reset and elites in Davos, Geneva or Brussels. My limited experience, having given talks at some of these institutions, is that the more international the organisation, the less woke it is. Yes, western high culture permeates global institutions, but these are nodes rather than the epicentre of the problem.

Once convinced of their neo-Marxist grand theory, some populist elites, fired by hostility to the rules-based liberal world order, feel compelled to develop an anti-western foreign policy. Enemy of my enemy is my friend logic carries them toward Putins Russia and quasi-illiberal democracies such as Hungary. An isolationism which originally sprang from the valid concern after protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that American nationhood not be defined by missionary democracy promotion has mutated into support for autocracy.

The perception that Russia is a masculine, white, Christian country unafraid to stand up for its traditions forms part of its appeal to conservative populist thinkers. Putin aint woke, Steve Bannon said last month. Hes anti-woke. The Russian Presidents 2019 interview with the Financial Times, when he declared that liberalism has become obsolete clearly impressed many Western conservative populists. Against Drag Queen Story Hour and self-flagellation about the sins of the past could be set Putins macho, Christian, nationalist Russia. Clearly, some populist elites took the bait.

Yet any honest appraisal of Putins Russia would reveal that its religiosity is weak, immigration substantial, and the Eurasianism of Putin and Alexandr Dugin would readily trade cultural homogeneity for more territory. Moreover, as the Russianist Edwin Bacon observes: Eurasianists embracing Orthodoxy identify themselves as having far more in common with what they would call other traditional faiths notably Islam, and principally Shia Islam than with other Christian churches. Putins Russia is a ramshackle, corrupt, aggressive despotism. It is not really hot stuff as Donald Trump put it once. It is not a post-woke paradise.

Populist elites also appear to like Russia because it has spurned liberalism, failing to appreciate that wokeness, whose sacralisation of minorities is used to restrict liberty, is best resisted by liberal arguments. They confuse procedural liberalism, which has been vital for the Wests success, with Left-modernist values such as celebrating diversity and change, which developed much later and are not central to liberalism.

As a rational populist and liberal nationalist, I maintain that the values of the median voter should be reflected in policy, but that those tasked with carrying out such policies should be guided by science, analytic logic, and expertise. The problem with many Western elites is not their technical skills, but their post-national woke values, which spring from religious rather than rational wellsprings. While populist commentators correctly skewer the progressive pieties of the elite media and political class, the anti-globalist conspiracy theorising of many needs an urgent reality check. Populist pundits and politicians should resist the urge to stake out contrarian positions on every news item, tacking instead to the centre ground on side issues to avoid losing support for core issues.

Hopefully the Ukraine crisiscan serve as a wake-up call, drawingthemback towardthe cultural problemstheir baseactually caresabout.

Go here to see the original:
Populists are losing this war - UnHerd

On March 5, Tonya Millis received the Libertarian nomination for U.S. House of Representatives, Indiana District 9, at the partys state convention in Fishers.

She will be on the ballot in the November election. Tonya intends to be the real voice for the people in District 9 as her Roll it Back campaign is now on the move.

Millis is a realtor associated with Suddarth & Company Real Estate in Mitchell and feels as a real estate broker in Southern Indiana she has been privileged to work with individuals in many walks of life.

I know the problems created in D.C. by the broken two-party system are not helping the good people in my district who work so hard to make ends meet. The rules, regulations and runaway debt placed on the citizenry by the duopoly is a hindrance and hardship for both individuals and small businesses, Millis said.

Millis was the 2020 Libertarian congressional candidate. District 9 includes Lawrence, Monroe, Brown, Jackson, Washington, Harrison, Floyd, Clark, Scott, Jefferson, Jennings, Decatur, Franklin, Ripley, Dearborn, Ohio, and Switzerland counties, and a portion of Bartholomew.

For more information about Tonyas campaign, go to her website http://www.tonyaforcongress.com.

Follow this link:
Millis receives Libertarian nomination for 9th District race - Evening News and Tribune

The cryptocurrency exchanges have only done what is legally required of them when sanctioning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, unlike the mainstream financial institutions whose restrictions on the Russians generally exceeds what is required by law. This column argues that the implications for the future of cryptocurrencies will be considerable.

The fundamental idea behind cryptocurrencies was the creation of a currency and a financial system that exist outside of the mainstream, motivated by libertarian visions of the world. The crypto advocates often say the mainstream system is corrupt, and the only way to fix it is technology that is pure. A lovely idea in theory, but what about practice?

The financial authorities dont like financial intermediation that bypasses their demands. Standards such as know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering become meaningless if the unsavoury elements of the financial world can do their business in crypto exchanges that refuse to comply with what the financial authorities see as legitimate demands and bypass any inconvenient rules (Bindseil et al. 2022).

For the crypto exchanges, however, reality came knocking. The financial authorities were too powerful, and most crypto exchanges now comply with KYC and anti-money laundering demands. After all, the alternative is being cut off from the rest of the financial system, which would not be good for business. If one cannot make a round trip from fiat to crypto back to fiat, most clients will allocate money elsewhere. Some rogue exchanges have refused, catering to the diehard libertarians (plus criminals and those subject to sanctions).

The crypto exchanges maintain their independent streak. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the governments in the West imposed sanctions, targeting a small set of individuals intimately connected with the Russian regime (Kwon et al. 2022). Many mainstream financial institutions, such as Visa and MasterCard, have gone above and beyond that to further limit Russian access to their firms services. Russian names find it very difficult to operate in the West, not usually for legal reasons but because the financial firms servicing them have opted not to do business with them. Whether legal or not, these firms act with the connivance of the financial authorities and the strong support of political leadership and popular opinion.

Not crypto. The crypto exchange Binance said, To unilaterally decide to ban peoples access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists. And its competitor Kraken was more explicit: Bitcoin is the embodiment of libertarian values, which strongly favour individualism and human rights. It cited the law, saying it cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so.

How important is crypto to Russia? I suspect the Russian government couldnt care less what the crypto exchanges do and that its longer-term goal is to prevent crypto use in Russia, as it gets in the way of social control. Crypto is especially useful in countries where the government is most likely to dislike it, places where governments like to closely monitor and control citizens and/or extract significant rent from the financial system. Most legal restrictions on crypto use come from such countries (Danielsson 2021).

While the Russian government might not like crypto, that does not apply to the regular Russian citizen. On the contrary, they are enthusiastic crypto users, in the top 20 of crypto adoption and third in crypto transfers.

The difference in attitude between the crypto exchanges and mainstream financial institutions raises interesting questions that will continue to reverberate. For example, suppose the consensus is that Russian names should be punished for what the Russian government is doing, for whatever reason. In that case, those Western firms that refuse to do so are put under a difficult political spotlight.

The political attitude of the crypto experiences can only strengthen the hand of crypto opponents. Expect to see increased calls for restrictions on crypto activity in the West, motivated by the Ukraine innovation and the prevalence of bitcoin as ransomware payments.

The crypto exchanges do not want to engage with these issues and have remained neutral on the Russian sanctions, citing political ideology for only doing what is required by law. The reason is clear. The most vocal crypto advocates are the libertarians who want to keep their money outside the mainstream. The crypto exchanges need to be seen as echoing those views, regardless of what they do in reality. That political mission is key to crypto success.

Compliance with legal and political demands from financial and political authorities, as well those of the public, threatens crypto adoption and the price of cryptocurrencies, raising interesting questions about the future of crypto. The libertarian values, so dear to crypto advocates, are meaningless if the financial authorities can compel the crypto exchanges to comply with their demands.

The crypto exchanges will be in a particularly tricky situation if the Russians are seen to be using cryptocurrencies on a large scale to avoid Western financial sanctions, both legal and political.

The crypto exchanges might be damned if they do and damned if they dont.

Suppose they operate in a jurisdiction that complies with the demands of the mainstream system. In that case, the authorities can force them to cut off today those Russians that the governments put on their sanctions list and then to comply with whatever the authorities choose to demand in the future. Some crypto exchanges will find a way to operate outside of the long arm of the Western financial authorities. Even then, it will be a struggle for them to maintain access to mainstream financial institutions that can provide fiat settlement.

When the crypto exchanges comply, they join the mainstream, taking cryptocurrencies with them. So, the ideology is flushed down the drain, and one of the main selling points, if not the main selling point, for crypto is gone. So, it would not be good for the price of bitcoin.

If the crypto exchanges do just the bare minimum and issue political statements justifying that, like Binance and Kraken, they are seen as favouring the opponent of the day today Russia, tomorrow, who knows? That creates opposition, fuels calls for banning crypto and makes regular investors reluctant to invest in crypto. Not good for value either.

Crypto has joined the mainstream. The war in Ukraine exposes the consequences. Exciting times for it.

Authors note: I received excellent comments from Nikola Tchouparov on this piece. All errors and opinions are mine.

Bindseil, U, P Papsdorf and J Schaaf (2022), The Bitcoin challenge: How to tame a digital predator, VoxEU.org, 7 January.

Danielsson, J (2021), What happens if bitcoin succeeds?, VoxEU.org, 26 February.

Kwon, O, C Syropoulos and Y Yotov (2022), Extraterritorial sanctions: A stick and a carrot, VoxEU.org, 4 March.

Link:
Cryptocurrencies and the war in Ukraine | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org

March 9, 2022

March 9, 2022

On March 15, 1982, Ronald Reagan paid an official visit to the state of Tennessee. Upon landing, the president traveled directly to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's historic estate. After laying a wreath to commemorate the 225th anniversary of his predecessor's birth, Reagan delivered an address to a joint session of the state legislature. "In this time when we and our people are so severely tested," he told the audience, "it will help to remember the courage that President Jackson could summon from the convictions in his heart."

Last night, almost exactly 40 years later, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) appealed to Jackson in similar terms. Speaking at the Reagan Library in California, Cotton claimed Jackson as the guiding spirit of the GOP. Noting that former President Donald Trump also placed himself in Jackson's lineage, Cotton contended "that old Democrat" prefiguresthe Republican future.That may well be true, but it's far from clear Cotton himself will be able to get there.

His remarks were partly a campaign preview. Despite his ritual disclaimer of interest in the presidential election, Cotton is laying the basis for a possible run in 2024 if Trump doesn't compete. Content aside, the Reagan Library event illustrated some of the obstacles he'll face. Like his Senate counterpart Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Cotton looks and sounds like a precocious high school debater.

The speech was more interesting, then, as an intellectual exercise than an electoral one. On one level, it was an act of synthesis. Rejecting the claim that Republicans must determine whether to follow the example of Reagan or Trump, Cotton asserted "a deeper continuity in the beliefs of our 40th and 45th presidents." The title of the lecture series, echoing Reagan's 1964 speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater, is a "Time for Choosing." But thoughthe Republican Party isstill fractured by Trump's legacy, Cotton argued no choiceis necessary.

Yet the speech was also an act of intentional division. On trade, criminal justice, and, above all, foreign policy, Cotton made his now-familiar case against libertarian influences in the GOP. Demanding a general revival of toughness, Cotton even ventured to criticize Trump: The First Step Act, which eased standards for releaseand lowered sentencing requirements for some categories of federal crime, was the worst mistake of his presidency,Cotton charged.

Even as Cotton nudged libertarians to the fringes of the Republican coalition, though, he also developed an implicit critique of so-called national conservatives, who promote a more active role for the federal government in economic affairs while sharing some of libertarians' objections to worldwide projection of American military power. Even as he denounced "globalism" for distracting from civic responsibility and the national interest, Cotton contended that a "new Iron Curtain threatens to fall" over Ukraine. The Cold War ended while he was in middle school, but Cotton remains a hawk who instinctively divides the world into opposed camps.

Cotton wants to perform this21st-century balancing actdraped in the Jacksonian mantle. But can he?

Part of Jackson's appeal to generations of American politicians is that his long and colorful career includes something to please almost everyone. As Cotton noted, Abraham Lincoln was inspired by Jackson's staunch support for the Union. Theodore Roosevelt admired him as an independent executive who asserted his constitutional prerogatives against a recalcitrant Congress. FDR, who helped elevate Jackson to a status equal to Jefferson as a founder of the Democratic Party, characterized Jackson as a defender of "social justice." Lyndon Johnson cited him as an inspiration to the struggle for freedom everywhere in the world. These interpretationsare not identical and, in some ways, not even compatible.

Jackson hardly lacks for critics, either. One reason Cotton framed the speech around "Old Hickory" is that he's among the once-revered figures whose stature has been undermined by accusations of racism in recent years. Those accusations are not unfounded. Personal opinions notwithstanding, Jackson was a large slaveowner, protagonist of Indian removal, and, in consequence, responsible for the successful spread of the plantation economy to Alabama, Mississippi, and other parts of what would become known as the Deep South. The paradox of which Jackson is hardly the only symbol is that policies and decisions which successfully extended democracy to many Americans denied its promise to others.

More than specific deeds, though, Jackson stands for a distinctive political disposition. "Neither an ideology nor a self-conscious movement," historian Walter Russell Mead argues, Jacksonianism is characterized by suspicion of centralized government and its credentialed functionaries, impatience with formal institutions and corresponding admiration for strong leaders, and an opposition to taxation that doesn't prevent the enjoyment of federal benefits for those who are presumed to deserve them. Sometimes described as "folk libertarianism," it's a contradictory set of attitudes that makes less sense on paper than in practice. But that's exactly why it's so appealing to the large numbers of Americans who think of politics as an exercise in common sense rather than a challenge of philosophy.

Jacksonians, so understood, don't think about the rest of the world all that often. When they do, they're sympathetic to underdogs, jealous of national honor, and predisposed to seek decisive solutions in military force rather than protracted negotiation. As in domestic affairs, the results aren't always theoretically coherent. But they are predictable. While populist figures including Fox host Tucker Carlson and Trump himself have expressed sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin,a student of the Jacksonian tradition would have known that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not go over well among Americans with these inclinations.

Cotton didn't quote Mead in his remarks at the Reagan library, but he's known to be a student of the writer's work. His argument, in effect, is that the Republican future lies with witting or unwitting Jacksonians. Such voters might have supported Democrats in the past but are alienated by that party's association with the kind of highly-educated scolds whom Jackson promised to dethrone 200 years ago.

The analogy isn't perfect, of course. Perhaps the biggest difference is that Jacksons' supporters were a clear majority of anewlyexpanded electorate, albeit one limited to white males. Today's Republicans often seem more interested in restricting voting than in attracting new supporters. Moreover,19th-century Jacksonians were mostly favorable to immigration, partly because they saw it as a source of votes. Although Cotton paid appropriate tribute to immigrants' patriotism in his Reagan Library speech, he's been a leading advocate of restricting legal immigration and stepping up enforcement against unlawful residence.

In good Jacksonian fashion, though, these tensions may be more theoretical than practical. Although the Jacksonsian disposition is historically associated with the "backcountry" culture of Scots-Irish settlers, it's proved capable of assimilating generations of immigrants and their descendants including millions who supportedTR, FDR, and Jackson himself. Precisely because new Americans are enthusiastic about American ideals and institutions, moreover, they tend to be skeptical of the iconoclastic tendencies that have been turned against Jackson himself.

The irony of Cotton's speech is that his ability to foresee the promised land may not earn him a place in it. Whatever the strength of his historical or political insights, he lacks the personal charisma Jackson's most successful heirs possessed to such an outstanding degree. Trump was able to forge an extraordinary connection with his supporters, but turned off even more Americans than he thrilled. That leaves Republicans still waiting for a new Jackson,a more broadly appealing leaderwho can turn widespread discontent into a governing coalition. Cotton isn't it.

Original post:
Tom Cotton is no Andrew Jackson - The Week

Over the past half-century, libertarians have played a critical role in the ever-growing war against governmental nonsense. If you want to read the best critiques of wasteful transit policy, sports stadia, government pensions or cancel culture, you can find it among liberty-minded outlets like Reason magazine, the Cato Institute and numerous free-market think tanks. They have provided a strong and necessary voice for free-market capitalism at a time when it faces serious challenges, notably from China and other state-directed systems.

Yet in recent years, libertarians increasingly seem less concerned with how their policies might actually impact people. Convinced that markets are virtually always the best way to approach any issue, they have allied with many of the same forces monopoly capital, anti-suburban zealots and the tech oligarchy which are systematically undermining the popular rationale for market capitalism.

Perhaps after the endless regulatory assaults of the Covid years, we could be nudging to a libertarian moment, the Wall Street Journals Gerard Baker hopes. But this would depend on having a vibrant social base, whose personal wellbeing is at stake, to push society in that direction.

The critical issue here is class. Libertarians tend to enjoy theory, but flounder when it comes to addressing the actual needs of people. Barely anyone today looks to former House speaker Paul Ryan, with his notions of privatising social security, or to other Fountainhead politicos of his ilk for leadership. The corporate superstructure has moved to the Democrats, while a large part of the GOPs class base notably small businesspeople, artisans and skilled workers feels abandoned by the corporate free-market Republicans and is more attracted to populist politics.

Nowhere is the disconnect between libertarianism and its traditional base of small-property owners more obvious than in housing. In their zeal, sometimes justified, to end the worst zoning abuses, the libertarians have allied themselves with two forces, monopoly capital and social engineers (also known as city planners), whose goal is not to expand the blessings of ownership, but to squelch it for all but a few. Their end game is to leave most people stuck in small apartments.

Libertarians have served as fellow travellers and allies to the hyperactive, oligarch-funded YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) movement. In essence, as former Cato fellow Randal OToole notes, the libertarian right has betrayed the very middle class that most supports conservative causes. OToole, who had been Catos land-use expert since 2007, was forced out in favour of an alliance, as he puts it, working hand-in-hand with left-wing groups seeking to force Californians to live in ways in which they didnt want to live.

Read the rest of this piece at Spiked.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo: Mr.TinMD via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

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The Limits of Libertarianism - newgeography.com

With an ambitious speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Monday night, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton became the latest Republican presidential aspirant to try and get himself anointed Donald Trump's populist successor. Cotton's remarks were noteworthy primarily for establishing him as a master of obfuscation who will go to almost comical lengths to paper over the party's many disagreements and contradictions.

One way to describe the fissures in the GOP is to contrast Reagan and Trump. The first was sunny and optimistic, a confident defender of democratic ideals who took a strong stand against the Soviet Union while championing immigration, free trade, and limited government at home. The second trafficked in anger and resentment, openly admiring dictators, denigrating NATO, and favoring closed borders and protectionist policies designed to insulate American workers from market forces.

Cotton elided these many differences by claiming that Reagan and Trump belong to the American populist tradition that traces back to President Andrew Jackson. According to Cotton, this tradition is known for proudly and unapologetically defending America's interests in the world and the interests of ordinary Americans against corrupt economic and political elites.

Cotton then set himself up as the truest successor of the Jacksonian tradition by calling out the biggest mistake made by each of his populist predecessors. Reagan, he claimed, should never have gone along with an immigration amnesty as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. As for Trump, his greatest error was supporting and signing the First Step Act, which passed the Senate in 2018 with 87 votes. (Cotton was one of 12 Republicans to oppose the bill.) It was championed by libertarians and widely hailed for its efforts to reform criminal law, sentencing guidelines, and federal prison policy to enhance fairness and reduce the inmate population.

As far as Cotton is concerned, the current surge in violent crime can be traced directly to this law, which supposedly encouraged the hiring of progressive prosecutors who engage in "nullification" by failing to prosecute criminals. The law also resulted in a drop in the prison population by "more than 400,000 inmates in 2020 alone," driven by the "faddish claim that our country has an over-incarceration problem" when in fact "we have an under-incarceration problem."

Combine this diatribe with other passages of the speech denouncing "globalism" and chain migration, calling for presidential medical adviser Anthony Fauci to be fired and "held accountable," denouncing the indoctrination of "our kids with extremist nonsense" in schools, railing against China, and mocking President Biden's appeasement of Russia and listeners could be forgiven for assuming Cotton's vision of Jacksonian populism amounts to a nastier and more competent version of Trumpism that's also an outright repudiation of Reaganism.

If that's what Tom Cotton wants the Republican Party to stand for, he can certainly try to make it a reality and ride it all the way to the Oval Office. But he should admit the truth that this vision has as little to do with Reagan as it does with Abraham Lincoln, another president Cotton attempted even more absurdly to fold into the Jacksonian tradition. Anything else is deliberate mystification.

See the rest here:
Cotton can't square the circle between Reagan and Trump - The Week

During an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC earlier this week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had some choice words for crypto bros navigating questions of deplatforming amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"If the Ukrainians with our help can impose enough economic pain on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and, sadly, the Russian people, combined with providing weaponsthat might be the only waythat I can see us getting to a stalemate that might save the Ukrainian people from even greater tragedy," said Clinton, referring to the broad-based sanctions imposed by Western governments on Russian financial institutions and state-owned companies.

Clinton added,"I was disappointed to see that some of the so-called crypto exchanges, not all of them, but some of them are refusing to end transactions with Russia for some philosophy of libertarianism or whatever,"later in the segment. "Everybodyshould do as much as possible to isolate Russian economic activity right now."

Maddow, who seemed to agree with her guest, responded by calling crypto "an escape hatch" with potential to stymie "multilateral action."

That's precisely the point. Crypto's transcendence of national borders is a feature, not a bug.

On Sunday, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov instructed crypto platforms to freeze the blockchain addresses of Russian and Belarusian users. Many major players in the crypto world bristled at this, pointing to the fact that administering such sanctions or deplatforming people based on nationality runs contrary to the liberatory promise of crypto.

Of course, many country's governments can and have cracked down on crypto exchanges in recent months by layering on reporting requirements for whenever large amounts of crypto are bought or sold. To a certain degree, exchanges are still subject to the rules of the countries they operate inas opposed tocold wallets, which are offline means of storing your crypto. Since widespread crypto adoption is still in its infancy, governments are still ironing out their regulatory approaches; expect lots of different frameworksand subsequent workaroundsin the coming years.

None of that is to say that broad-based economic sanctions won't be effective in applying pressure on Putin, but people within the crypto world tend to approach deplatforming people with major trepidation. Right now, ordinary Russians are being punished by sanctions for the sins of their strongman and it's important to take seriously the pain that will be felt by them.

For now, Russian users are still serviced by cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Kraken, which allow people to retain some amount of financial freedom even as their prospects look grim. Perhaps more will flock to those options in the future; they should have both financial and physical exit from their country available to them if they so choose. And, where crypto possibly helps everyday Russians, it also helps the Ukrainians under siege, who are facing the financial instability that accompanies war.

See more here:
Hillary Clinton Is 'Disappointed' by Crypto Exchanges' 'Philosophy of Libertarianism' Hillary Clinton Is 'Disappointed' by Crypto Exchanges'...

Should the United States do more to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders? Will financial sanctions against Russia work and are they moral? What does a libertarian foreign policy predicated on "realism and restraint" look like?

Today's guest on The Reason Interview is Will Ruger, the newly appointed president of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), who holds a Ph.D. in politics specializing in foreign policy. He's a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and was a prominent voice in calling for U.S. withdrawal. Ruger was nominated to be ambassador to that country late in the Trump administration (his confirmation was never brought to a vote).

He's a proponent of what he calls "libertarian realism" when it comes to foreign policy, meaning that America's interventions abroad should be focused on defending a narrowly defined national interest and that the use of military force should be strictly subjugated to diplomacy. Ruger is skeptical that the United States can or should play a leading role in defending Ukraine and he doesn't think sanctions are likely to accomplish anything, especially in the short run.

We talk about all that, how NATO, the European Union, and China figure into current events, and what he plans to do as the head of AIER, one of the oldest free market think tanks in the country.

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Will Ruger: How Libertarians Should Think About Ukraine Invasion - Reason